In the current economic environment, lay-offs are an unfortunate fact of life.

You can lay off an employee (ask them to stay at home or take unpaid leave) when you temporarily can’t give them paid work – as long as the employment contract allows this.

Short-time working is when an employee works reduced hours or is paid less than half a week’s pay.

Laying off staff or short-time working can help avoid redundancies – but you have to agree this with staff first.

This could be in:

their employment contract

a national agreement for the industry

a collective agreement between you and a recognised trade union.

It is appreciated that employers do not readily resort to this step and some industries are more susceptible than others. Used indiscriminately they can damage employee relations in a workplace which can have an impact on a business for a very long time.